When Mathew Vassar built the original main building at Vassar college, he made the hallways of this college for women extra wide. While there is an apocryphal story that he did this so he could later convert the college to a brewery if the whole educating women thing did not work out, the actual explanation is a window on Victorian-era thinking about women.

People of the time were convinced that women were subject to hysteria, and that one way to potentially defuse such hysteria was through exercise. The extra-wide hallways were so women in their hoop skirts could walk back and forth in bad weather. (Interestingly, Vassar and other women's colleges also played a role in the early history of baseball, fielding teams for a number of years until men decided that the unseemlyness of women playing sports trumped the fight against hysteria).

Whenever this story is told, we laugh today at Victorians' condescending, even misogynist views of women as subject to hysteria or fainting or the vapors when encountering the slightest bit of stress.

Which is why I never would have believed that it would be 21st century feminists dredging up these old attitudes with fears of "triggering." Women are once again being treated as if they will get the vapors if difficult topics are discussed in class. I suppose we are now supposed to leave these to men in the smoking room after dinner?

In the future, historians will draw a line somewhere in the last decade to mark the point where feminism switched from empowering women to treating them like children.

Disclosure: My wife attended Vassar College and is still convinced the brewery explanation is the correct one.

Also, this seems to be yet another law that purports to promote women's rights by treating them like they are ignorant rubes unable to make the smallest decisions for themselves. The implicit assumption in the law is that all prostitutes are in the profession solely due to male compulsion. This is consistent with a certain philosophy among feminists that all behaviors of women with which they don't agree are not due to a normal excercise of free will by people who simply have different preferences, but are due to some sort of enslavement by the patrimony.

But one high-priced online hooker said she’s no victim — and she doesn’t know any women who are.

“If you are an escort, you go into it of your own free will,” she said. “Absolutely no one is forced into doing this. You don’t have to be affiliated with any agency. I’m not forced to do anything I don’t want.”

What’s more, the new law’s focus on johns, she said, will hurt her lucrative-though-lawless trade.

“If that’s the law that’s been written, then yes, it’s going to impact business,” she said when read the new penalties.

There is no doubt that some women get into situations where they are abused or forced into work or have a large portion of their earnings taken. But this tends to be a result of the profession being underground, giving women no legal recourse when they are abused and defrauded. If one really is worried about women's working conditions, the best thing to do is legalize prostitution, instantly giving them access to the legal system to redress wrongs.